


Don't say a word (We'll dance with the devil)

by Heart_Taker



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Cheating, Dom/sub Undertones, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, Masochism, Public Sex, Relationship Dissatisfaction, Self-Esteem Issues, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 16:11:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Taker/pseuds/Heart_Taker
Summary: Inspired byThisand theShades of Shameseries by Recourse. check out their work if you're looking for more angst and cheating AUs.I'm sorry to those waiting for me to update Road to Redemption, that will come in due time, I promise. In the meantime, read this, and try not to hate me.





	Don't say a word (We'll dance with the devil)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by This and the Shades of Shame series by Recourse. check out their work if you're looking for more angst and cheating AUs. 
> 
> I'm sorry to those waiting for me to update Road to Redemption, that will come in due time, I promise. In the meantime, read this, and try not to hate me.

Victoria is a fire. Scalding, scorching, searing to the touch. Her body burns the edges of Max’s fingertips, the heat a scathing reminder that she’s _alive._

These days it’s the only time she feels that way. 

It’s the hunger in her touch, the desperation with which she can make Victoria dig into her back that reminds her of the ache, of the sordid pleasure in living, not just existing. It’s the way her scream rises, ragged and raw from the back of her throat when Max curls her fingers just right. It doesn’t matter where they are, in Victoria’s car in an abandoned parking lot, in one of the hundred nameless motels dotting the highways with rooms made of peeling wallpaper and fogged mirrors, or in the beds that belong to them, but not to them. 

The mismatched rings that lie abandoned on bedside tables are a painful reminder of that. 

It’s everyone’s fault and no ones. It’s their fault and its not. It’s those three bottles of prosecco that lie dripping onto the carpet. 

Soon the excuses don’t matter. 

Victoria’s whimpers are a symphony of pleasure. Max isn’t satisfied. 

She slams the blonde against the wall of an alley, her fingers digging greedily into Victoria’s soaking cunt as she stares her down with a vicious glare. Victoria is always putty in her hands, always returning that glare with a look of pure need, of greed and lust and all the things that Max wants to crush between her fingertips. 

Victoria shudders, her walls clenching hard down upon Max fingers as she comes. She bites her lip, trying to stifle her scream for fear of the people living above this alley, and Max almost slaps her for it. Instead she rips her fingers out of Victoria before she can ride out the waves of her orgasm, bringing them up to her mouth and licking. Victoria tastes like jealousy, like a bitter gin that can be addictive, if you let it be. She watches Max taste her off her fingers, her expression greedy and lustful with her unsatisfying orgasm. 

Max smirks, letting those same fingers trace a line across Victoria jaw. Victoria tries to chase them with her mouth, for the briefest of moments before Max is gripping her by her throat, forcing her to look deep at the hunger in those hazel eyes. 

Neither of them are ever going to be satisfied. But this is the closest they can get. 

 

\---

 

Chloe is drifting. 

She finds herself in the quiet of an empty home, in the static of a radio she can’t summon the energy to get up and change to something better. She watches the slow path of a droplet, forming in the sweat of a cold beer she thought would help her feel better, but is now sitting abandoned on the coffee table. 

The clock ticks on, indifferent. 

There is a cigarette in her hand, its smoke slowly trailing up past her. She watches as it spirals into intricate pattern in the air, each and every curve of smoke mocking her. There is no ashtray in the house. Max would never allow it. Just another thing for them to fight about, when she walks in through the door. 

The house is a battlefield, a mausoleum dedicated to the ghosts of battles unfulfilled, fights unresolved. Chloe does her best to stare up at the ceiling, listening to the ticking of the clock going by. She can’t bear to look around. Can’t bear to see the kitchen island where she accidentally broke a glass in the middle of an argument, or the loose door hinge from when Max shut herself in their room, refusing to talk. 

She can’t bear to look at the mismatched speakers, from when she destroyed one in a fit of drunken rage. 

This house is a testament to every bad memory that has her paralysed, unmoving, unblinking, watching the ceiling with the dedication of a soldier. That’s all she’s always had, a dedication and determination to whatever she’s chosen to do. If only she could make better choices. 

The ring on her finger weighs heavy on the cigarette.

The smoke curls. The light bulbs buzz. The clock ticks on, indifferent. 

_She was supposed to be home an hour ago._

 

\---

 

Max and Victoria swoon.

Victoria is a sensation that crawls under her skin. A psychedelic symphony that makes Max see stars and curse her name with every gasping breath she can take. Victoria is vicious, a fast and unforgiving pumping of fingers that claw at the inside of Max, hurting, burning, a goddamn pure and _addictive_ pain. 

Max loves it. She _exults_ in it. 

They lie together afterwards, whenever they can. Smeared candy red lipstick and messy bronze freckles framed by the ever-changing tapestry of bedsheets. They laugh, sometimes from the sheen of sweat and high of adrenaline, and sometimes, when Max let’s Victoria convince her, from the garden variety of drugs that garnish their sex like a cherry on a sundae. The drugs are never the star. The MDMA is nothing without Victoria’s hair for Max to run her fingers through. The weed is nothing without the satisfied sighs that Victoria’s tongue can charm out of Max.

Max tastes sweet, always a viscous nectar that burns her taste buds. Victoria daydreams about that taste sometimes, finds echoes of it in the fine champagnes she uses to endure the otherwise painfully dull parties. Schmoozing with the upper crust of the art world holds no thrill for her anymore. 

Not when the thought of one of them rounding the corner of the abandoned hallway, discovering Max with her dress hiked up her hips, face a mask of pleasure with Victoria kneeling between her legs excites her more. That was such a fond memory for Victoria. She remembered falling back onto her ass, exhausted after having made Max come. Max, calming herself down with shaky breaths, then catching Victoria’s eye with a fierce glare and cocky grin. 

Max, leaning forward, whispering into her ear. Calling her the filthiest of things. Demanding she masturbate right then and there for her to watch. 

Spreading her legs wide in that hallway, Max before her, watching with ungodly lust in her eyes. 

Victoria coming embarrassingly quickly that night, and Max repeatedly seeking out sex in public spaces after that. 

God, the drugs meant nothing. Not when she was already addicted to her. 

 

\---

 

Nathan knows he has issues. 

It’s the kind of issues that stop him from questioning when his wife comes home late. It’s the gnawing he gets round the edges of his heart when he sees Victoria wander about their small apartment, wishing he had the money to afford somewhere better for her. 

She tells him that it doesn’t matter, that she has her own spaces for when she wants to feel like that again. That it doesn’t matter that his parents cut him off from their money, after he repeatedly squandered away thousands of dollars on failed business ventures. That it’s alright that he comes home from his pencil-pushing job far too mentally exhausted to do anything. 

He was never good at anything, really. Too above paying attention in school to actually learn anything, yet not good enough to actually learn the business acumen that made his father a ruthless businessman. Not artsy enough to succeed in the world of art, and nowhere near sharp enough to be half the cutthroat his father was. And so the fire of his teenage peak burned away, until it’s fading embers do nothing but hurt him. It hurts when he’s reminded of what he used to be, every time his superiors take a stab at his uselessness

He knows that it’s killing him, slowly. He was never good enough for her. And she’s stuck with him. Married for status, and trapped by a shitty pre-nup that doesn’t allow her to divorce him, lest they tarnish the Prescott name further with scandal. 

He has a little stash, alcohol hidden in the vents of the apartment that he uses to chase away the edges of the pain every time Victoria spends the night outside for work. He chases away the pain of his shitty job, of his shitty life. He tries to chase away the memory of an alert on Victoria’s phone, that he happened to see while she was in the shower. 

_Max:_

_Found a new motel. Wear something nice. For me._

Three little sentences. Three bottles of Jack to chase them away. Seemed like solid math to him. But turns out he’s shit at that too, because no matter how much he drinks, that memory doesn’t fade, doesn’t blur at the edges or change in meaning. It haunts him, a relentless demon that plagues his dreams and his waking thoughts. 

He doesn’t talk to Victoria about it. 

He cries himself to sleep alone instead. 

 

\---

 

Max is bored.

She is unstimulated, unamused, uninterested in the throngs of journalists and critics, clamouring to be the first opinion on her latest work. Her photographs are stunning, as always, and even that bores her. She knows how good they are, but that doesn’t matter when no one else will truly understand her inspiration, her muse. 

They scramble to interpret that symbolism of a woman, wrapped in bedsheets, arms pulled tightly apart by red silk. They struggle to understand the thought process behind two woman, blindfolded and back to back, coy grins on their faces. The attempt to place meaning on a picture of two women, on opposite ends of a room, eyes meeting with knowledge in their gaze. 

Eventually some of them will write articles. Others will give reviews, and more yet will advertise and purchase her prints. She’ll live off that money, and go out to take more picture. Lather, rinse, repeat, yawn. Its mundane, ordinary, cyclical. No matter how inspired or cultured the reviewers make it out to be, all it is is the same recycled and misunderstood garbage. Art is subjective, after all. 

Max knows that better than anyone. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the best part of believing is the lie. 

A particularly determined journalist yells, loud enough to be heard above the clamour. “Maxine! (Cue the annoyance. Max. Always Max.) You’re always seen working, tell us, is there anything you do for fun?” Max cocks and eyebrow, regarding him with a glance and contemplating responding for a second. That would be entertaining, wouldn’t it? Telling the world that Max Caulfield, legendary and eclectic photographer, cheats on her wife with her high-school bully in increasingly public spaces for kicks. 

Before she can embark on that path of career suicide, however, security forms their line, and the journalist is lost to the crowd. She smirks, cocky and casual, and saunters away. Once out of sight, she pulls out her phone, and finds the number. The number to the one that never denies her, never bores her, always begs her for more and more until she can barely breathe, and then more still. Her smirk grows smug, and she send off the text. 

_Me:_

_Hey. Free tonight?_

She watches as the three dots pop up, Victoria typing away. 

_Vic:_

_For you, always._

Max smiles, satisfaction and anticipation mixing into something low and dangerous in her stomach. This, this would always excite her. 

Thoughts of childhood friends could not be further away.


End file.
